The Dark Garden at Alnwick Garden

The Dark Garden is Alnwick Garden’s latest venture. It joins their already successful Christmas events. As a semi-regular visitor to the gardens and castle, and a huge Halloween and scare fan, I was quite excited for the night we had booked; as far as I am concerned the more the merrier when it come to spooky venues in the area. My family and I (hubby, 2 kids and the eldest’s girlfriend) had decided to spend the day enjoying the gardens and castle as we had a 90 minute journey to get to Alnwick. The plan was to return to the car at the end of the day so the youngest and I could change into our costumes - the other three are boring, what can I say? During the beautiful autumnal day we were impressed by the decorations dotted around. It looked amazing by day and we were excited to see how much better it would look by night. There were severed heads hanging in the tree-lined steps that run either side of the show-stopping Grand Cascade fountain and ghostly bodies suspended in the bamboo labyrinth. Tantalisingly, we walked past many tarpaulin covered areas. We enjoyed our day and left at closing time to change.

Once the youngest and myself were in our costumes we duly made our way back and re-entered Alnwick Gardens, now The Dark Garden. It wasn’t fully dark yet, it was still dusk but we could see twinkling lights and it looked magical. The event began with the obligatory group safety talk which was nicely woven into a tale about the ringing of bells to protect yourself. We were then sent off to the left to begin our clockwise tour of the haunted trail. To quote directly from Alnwick Garden’s page, “Will you emerge dead or alive from the Poison Garden…” this was the first area we walked by. I say walked by because it was in darkness and obviously not opening for the evening. I was disappointed as I’d hoped for a different talk from the one we’d had earlier in the day. Our group carried on to the cherry orchard and we started a slow walk up the winding path to the top. The path was lined with flaming tin cans every few metres. This was a really nice effect - for the first 2 or 3 switchbacks, but by the time we eventually reached the top it felt boring and uninspiring. I wasn’t the only parent concerned about their child either, we were pulling them to the centre of the path so their costumes didn’t catch fire - the flames were rather close to the edges of the walkway.

There are many benches along this trail and I felt that a few actors could have been incorporated nicely, perhaps telling part of a story or imparting wisdom for the evening ahead. As we arrived at the top of the cherry orchard it was fully dark and we came across a truly stunning New Orleans Voodoo-style graveyard. I really enjoyed this, the attention to detail was exquisite and there was another bell to ring. However a member of staff reached forward and removed the bell before we got close enough to ring it, my youngest was confused as to why we had been instructed to ring bells but the opportunity was taken away.

Once again quoting directly from Alnwick Garden’s website, “…who, or what, are the shadowy figures glimpsed amongst the black silhouetted cherry orchard trees? Is that an animal, or a creature from another world lurking in the dark undergrowth?” During our daytime wandering we had spotted black cutouts of zombies in the trees, but as we passed by after dark we could barely make them out, the lighting was terrible and a few recorded moans and groans wouldn’t have gone amiss. Heck, they could easily have had someone in a morph suit creeping around the trees to add to the spookiness.

As we carried along the trail we stepped back to watch the projections on the archway entrance to the ornamental gardens. The entire light show lasted approximately 7 minutes and at times was quite good with flames licking the brickwork and the words ‘HELLO THERE’ flickering and faltering to become “HELL HERE’, a nice touch we felt. It was as we were about to head into the ornamental garden that I realised the pathways that ran either side of the Grand Cascade fountain were blocked off and we wouldn't experience the wonderful decor that hung in the branches, such a shame I feel.

Upon entering the upper garden we were given advice from 2 strangely dressed metallic men, we were warned of the monks who roamed the garden. We wandered around finding a few decorations swinging about, some of the lighting was a bit blue and washed out any details, but they were still fun. We interacted with a talking Green Man face on a wall in one corner for maybe 30 seconds before moving along and checking out the giant pumpkin with a projected face, this was a cute touch for the kiddies.

We found ourselves at the central pond and were looking at the doll hands poking out of the water when a beaked figure sidled up to us, banged his staff to demand our attention and then pointed at the water. I found it amusing that we were distracted from something we were already looking at only to be instructed to return our gaze to it seconds later. It was quite a while before I realised this figure was a monk, he looked more like a Plague Doctor, and we only encountered the one. After leaving the ornamental garden we carried on clockwise and passed a group of children’s toys that I had noted were rather creepy in the daytime. As one toy was seated upon a rocking chair we stood for a few minutes to see what would happen, nothing did. Another missed opportunity perhaps.

Walking through more than half a dozen scarecrows was spooky and at the top this path we were directed to meet the walking scarecrow. This was a nice touch, we entered a hedged area, shook hands/straw with the scarecrow and then left to resume our tour. There is a tower at this point and in the daytime we saw a mannequin hanging by a noose, this was not lit after dark. Opposite is a small copse of trees that had huge ghosts hanging from the branches; another badly lit area, the blues washed out the detail to the point that my camera couldn’t pick anything up. Maybe they were real ghosts? We came upon a small, freshly-dug grave with a stuffed toy on top. A child’s voice plaintively cried out “Let me out!” followed by knocking. Now that made me shiver. As we rounded the corner I felt a ripple of excitement, I had realised we were headed for the labyrinth! However, my excitement was short-lived as once again, this was an area that was cordoned off, yet another missed opportunity.

All in all it took us maybe 35-40 minutes to navigate The Dark Garden and we certainly didn’t rush ourselves. It cost us £27 for the ticket. For all there were 2, maybe 3, things I really liked I felt that the rest of it was not well thought out. There were too many ‘dead’ areas, pardon the pun, and certainly not enough actors to interact with. We spotted 3 guides on our walk, they each had a string of fairy lights hanging around their necks which was unimaginative and felt Christmassy rather than spooky. A couple of trick or treating stations for the kids would have been a nice touch, maybe hot chocolate carts to break up the areas where nothing happened.

really wanted to come away from The Dark Garden raving about it but instead I felt a little deflated. I know I like the scares and jumps of Halloween events, but I knew this was going to be a little more low key as it was a family attraction so I felt I had tempered my expectations accordingly. Hearing a young boy of maybe 6 saying he was bored saddened me. Another quote, “Will your heart be in your mouth or in your hand? Come and find out.” My heart sank into my boots I’m afraid, at no point did my pulse ever consider quickening. “Suitable for bold adults and all excited children.” I fervently wish this were true, I would say it was suitable for bold children under 10 years old, accompanied by adults. As I wrote earlier, we had travelled 90 minutes to Alnwick and honestly, unless you live within a 20-30 minute drive I would look elsewhere for Halloween fun - it makes me terribly sad to say that. I hope that Alnwick Gardens use this year as a learning curve and tweak the event for next year, I want it to be a success, I want to return and support them, but until more is done I will be seeking my spooky thrills elsewhere.​